Sunday, March 19th - "Seeking: Who Sinned?"
First United Presbyterian Church
“Seeking: Who Sinned?”
Rev. Amy Morgan
March 19, 2023
John 9:1-41
As Jesus walked along, he saw a man blind from birth.
2 His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
3 Jesus answered, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him.
4 We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work.
5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world."
6 When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man's eyes,
7 saying to him, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam" (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.
The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, "Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?"
9 Some were saying, "It is he." Others were saying, "No, but it is someone like him." He kept saying, "I am the man."
10 But they kept asking him, "Then how were your eyes opened?"
11 He answered, "The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, 'Go to Siloam and wash.' Then I went and washed and received my sight."
12 They said to him, "Where is he?" He said, "I do not know."
13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind.
14 Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes.
15 Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, "He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see."
16 Some of the Pharisees said, "This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath." But others said, "How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?" And they were divided.
17 So they said again to the blind man, "What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened." He said, "He is a prophet."
18 The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight
19 and asked them, "Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?"
20 His parents answered, "We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind;
21 but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself."
22 His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue.
23 Therefore his parents said, "He is of age; ask him."
24 So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, "Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner."
25 He answered, "I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see."
26 They said to him, "What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?"
27 He answered them, "I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?"
28 Then they reviled him, saying, "You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses.
29 We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from."
30 The man answered, "Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes.
31 We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will.
32 Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind.
33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing."
34 They answered him, "You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?" And they drove him out.
35 Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?"
36 He answered, "And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him."
37 Jesus said to him, "You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he."
38 He said, "Lord, I believe." And he worshiped him.
39 Jesus said, "I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind."
40 Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, "Surely we are not blind, are we?"
41 Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, 'We see,' your sin remains.
“Tenbatsu” is a Japanese term for divine punishment. Twelve years ago this month, when a massive earthquake and tsunami killed more than 19,000 people in eastern Japan, Tokyo’s governor, Shintaro Ishihara, declared that the calamity that hit his country was "tenbatsu" for the wickedness of the Japanese people. He asserted that "We need a tsunami to wipe out egoism, which has rusted onto the mentality of Japanese over a long period of time. I think the disaster is a kind of divine punishment, although I feel sorry for disaster victims.”
Blaming a natural disaster on human wickedness or sin is not an original idea. The televangelist Pat Robertson said the 2009 earthquake which rocked Haiti and claimed more than 200,000 lives was because the country was "cursed" after making a "pact to the devil."
In 2005, after Hurricane Katrina slammed New Orleans, a Texas mega-church pastor said the storm was the "judgment of God" for the sins that took place on its streets.
Even the 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S., a very un-natural disaster, was blamed by Jerry Falwell, not on the terrorists themselves but on (and I’m quoting here), “the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America.”
While I hope all of us here today would find this kind of victim-blaming unconscionable and not at all resembling the Christian faith and loving God we follow, there are much more subtle ways we participate in the same sort of mindset.
Maybe it is simply in the way we categorize people: homeless, addicts, the poor, immigrants. If we can clump people with problems all together, we can distance them from ourselves. We can put their problems over there and see clearly all the ways our lives are different from theirs. We think this distance will protect us from what ails them. We won’t end up like them because we aren’t like them.
But even if we do see that those who suffer are like us – they are human, they are children of God – even then we tend to believe, maybe even subconsciously, that we can inoculate ourselves from their suffering through what we know or what we do. If we can find a cause, something or someone to blame for the problems people experience, we can figure out how to keep those problems from affecting us and those we love. We can make better life choices, work harder, get more educated. We can be good, law-abiding citizens. We can eat right and exercise, budget and save, go to church and pray. If we can develop some reasonable sense of cause and effect for the conditions people suffer from, we can simply avoid those causes.
And we see the results of this mindset all over our society: in the way we treat addiction and homelessness and even mental illness. Was it the way they were raised, some childhood trauma, that caused this? Or a series of poor life choices and not taking good care of themselves? Who sinned? This person or their parents? Why should we, as a society, be responsible for helping them?
Or maybe we feel like we know what’s best for them, because we don’t find ourselves in the same predicament. The church I served in Michigan created a training video on how to be a congregation that welcomes people with special needs. Terry, a man with sight impairment, helped us create the video. In the “what not to do segment,” Terry walked into the church with his white cane, and before he could even say, “hello,” one of the ushers grabbed his arm and dragged him into the chapel, pushing past other worshipers to find him a pew to sit in. Terry kept trying to show the usher the correct way to hold her elbow out so he could follow her more easily, and he kept trying to interject what he needed. But she just kept talking nervously and pulling him along. When they finally reached the pew, Terry shouted, in the middle of the chapel full of people, “I was just trying to find the bathroom!”
Terry shared that often when people are trying to help him, he has to deal with their concept of blindness and not what he needs. He explained that if people would just ask two simple questions, embarrassment could be avoided for everyone. The first question is, “Can I help you?” If the answer is “yes,” the next question is, “how?” Terry asserts that he is the expert on blindness, and not the sighted person trying to help him. So he’s usually the best person to let people know if he needs help and what kind of help he needs.
It is often our concepts about people who have a disability or need or who are experiencing suffering that creates a barrier to healing and relationship. We forget that each person is an expert in their own lives. We forget to listen.
This is what happens in today’s story from the gospel of John. The prevailing concept about blindness or any other disability was that it was a divine punishment for sin. This allowed people to live in a world-view of simple cause and effect. If you wanted to avoid such suffering, all you had to do was live righteously and without sin. All people with disabilities, people who suffered calamity or distress, could be clumped together and put at a distance and blamed for their own problems. No one needed to listen to them or ask if they needed help or how because they knew that what they needed was to get right with God.
But then Jesus upends this neat and tidy perspective. He does something that has never been done since the world began. He opens the eyes of one who was blind since birth. Not because the man, or his parents, made amends for some sin. Not because he was righteous or deserving. Jesus healed this man, on the Sabbath no less, so that God’s works might be revealed in him. The man’s disability provided the opportunity for the light of Christ to shine in the world.
This throws into question not just the cause-and-effect nature of God’s justice but the very nature of disability. Is it really a disability if it reveals God’s works? If his blindness can be healed without atonement for any sin, what was the cause of his blindness and how can it be avoided?
We run up against these kinds of questions again and again. When bad things happen to good people. When a child with special needs speaks truth and lights up a room. When we experience suffering in our own lives and can’t figure out where we went wrong, what we did to deserve this.
The great tragedy of the human condition is that we don’t live in a world of simple cause and effect, where our good choices or morality or even kindness can ensure positive outcomes for us or those we love. We can’t blame people for their suffering without turning that blame on ourselves when we inevitably experience suffering. We don’t get to escape suffering or control life’s outcomes with self-righteousness, by doing and thinking and believing all the right things.
And it is blindness to this reality that Jesus points out in the religious scholars of his day. They think they see, but they are blind. They think they see how to avoid suffering – by blaming the victim or their family. And so they are blind to the miracle that is right in front of their eyes – the healing of a man blind since birth. No matter how many times the man tries to explain it to them, the refuse to listen, they refuse to see. Because that would upend their whole universe. They want the security of knowing things will go well for them because they are righteous. So if blindness is not caused by sin and can be healed without atonement, anything is possible.
This is both a terrifying and wondrous prospect. It is terrifying because it means that even if we do and think and believe all the right things, bad things can happen to us and to those we love. But it is also wondrous because it means that goodness and beauty and healing and blessing can come to those who didn’t earn it or deserve it or even understand it.
“Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him.”
God’s works can be revealed through the tragedy of the human condition. The uncertainty and vulnerability that we must live with are by design. So that we might know that love and wholeness and joy are not things we must strive to earn or accomplish but gifts of which each and every human being is born worthy.
This means that we can’t rely on our own wit and will to save us. And it means we don’t have to rely on our own wit and will to save us. It’s good news or bad news, I suppose, depending on where you are.
If we’re living the dream, following the rules, making good choices and reaping the rewards; if we’re still living the illusion that we can protect ourselves from suffering – this news means we are walking around blindfolded. We are just as likely to fall into a pit as anyone else, but we’ve convinced ourselves that we’re able to see and avoid all obstacles ahead. This still describes many of the religious leaders of our day, those who would designate earthquakes and hurricanes and terrorist attacks as some form of divine retribution.
But those of us living with a disability or addiction or illness or abuse experience the vulnerability of the human condition every minute of every day. Our eyes have been opened to all we can’t do to avoid suffering. And if someone comes along who provides help, healing, and hope – whether their a sinner or a saint – that is good news. If we can be helped, not because we finally did or thought or believed the right things, but just because we are humans in need of healing – well, that is very good news. Grace is extremely good news for those who can see that grace is our only salvation.
Instead of asking who is to blame, what causes suffering, and trying to avoid it, perhaps there are better questions. Like “can I help you?” and “how?” In acknowledging the reality that we are all human and vulnerable, that the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike, and that God’s works can be revealed even in the midst of suffering, we may just be able to see a little more clearly. We may be agents of God’s grace and healing for our neighbors. We may even be able to make peace with our own imperfections.
Friends, if you know nothing else after today, know this: God does not desire us to suffer, and God does not punish us with suffering. In Jesus Christ, God revealed that grace and healing and hope are the outcomes of God’s salvation history. Suffering is not redemptive or a test of our faith or something we deserve. It is also not something we can avoid by doing, thinking, or believing the right things. Suffering is part of our human vulnerability, but it is not the end of our story or the definition of our being. God’s grace in Jesus Christ opens our eyes to the wonder and possibility of a future with hope. We live in gratitude for this gift of grace, this gift that we can never earn but of which we are all worthy.
So may we ask better questions, be open to the miracles that are right in front of us, and celebrate the grace of God revealed in the world around us.
To God be all glory forever and ever. Amen.
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